Comrade Plekhanov, in Kuryer,[4]
has addressed a letter to
the workers. In that letter he advises the workers how to act. He argues as
follows. The government is allowing full freedom for the sharpest criticism of
the Duma. It is doing so in order to weaken the people’s support of the
Duma. The government wants to provoke the workers to fight before they are
ready. The workers must thwart the government’s plans. The fact that bourgeois
parties predominate in the Duma should not deter them. The bourgeoisie, which
predominates in the Duma, is demanding freedom for all and land for the
peasants. Therefore the whole people should support the Duma.

This argument is a mixture of truth and error. Let us calmly examine Comrade
Plekhanov’s ideas and advice in detail.

According to Comrade Plekhanov’s first idea, the govern ment is allowing full
freedom for the sharpest criticism of the Duma in order to weaken the people’s
support of the Duma.

Is that true? Let us see. Where has the sharpest criticism of the Duma been
expressed lately? In the columns of such newspapers as Nevskaya Gazeta,
Dyelo Naroda[5]
and Volna, and at public meetings. The liberal
bourgeoisie, the Cadets who are in the majority in the Duma, are beside
themselves with rage over this criticism, and particularly over the public
meetings held in St. Petersburg. The Cadets even went so far as to express
surprise that the police is ignoring socialist meetings.

How has the government reacted? It has suppressed Dyelo Naroda and
Nevskaya Gazeta, and has prosecuted Volna three times. It has
banned public meetings and has
announced that it will take proceedings against those responsible for the
meeting held in the Panina Palace on May 9.

This clearly shows that Comrade Plekhanov is wrong. He is guilty of a
gross error.

Now let us examine Comrade Plekhanov’s second idea. The government wants to
provoke the workers to fight before they are ready. The workers would be unwise
to allow themselves to be provoked; they would be unwise to issue a call to
arms at the present time.

This is quite true, but Comrade Plekhanov expresses this idea so inadequately as
to invite the most harmful misinterpretation. He forgets to add, first, that the
government’s whole conduct and its entire attitude towards the Duma are making
inevitable another struggle outside the Duma. Secondly, he does not say that the
workers in common with the peasantry will have to take up this struggle despite
the wavering and treacherous liberal bourgeoisie.

Comrade Plekhanov does not realise that by inadequately expressing a correct
idea he brings grist to the mill of the liberal bourgeoisie, which has secured
the banning of socialist meetings. The bourgeoisie is making out that
all of the socialists’ references to the Cadets being no good and to
the struggle outside the Duma are a harmful challenge to the workers to fight
immediately. The bourgeoisie is deliberately lying about the
socialists, and Plekhanov, wrongly appraising the political situation, helps
these lies.

TakeVolna, for example, which the bourgeoisie has at tacked and
reviled most of all. Has Volna called for a fight immediately? No. The
bourgeoisie was lying about Volna. Two weeks ago
Volna (No. 10) wrote:
“We must not force the pace of [i.e., artificially accelerate, drive on,
whip up] events. It is not in our interest to hasten an explosion at
present. There can be no doubt about
that.”[1]
That is clear enough, isn’t it? Why, then, did the bourgeoisie spread
lies and slander about the socialists? Because the socialists were
telling the truth when they said that a struggle outside the Duma was
inevitable, and that this struggle would be
waged by the proletariat and the peasantry despite the treachery of the
liberal bourgeoisie.

Take the resolution adopted at the meeting in the Panina Palace (this resolution
was published in Volna, No. 14, and in a number of other
newspapers).[2]
Does this resolution call for an immediate fight? No, it does
not. Why, then, did the liberal bourgeoisie and all the Cadets go mad with rage
against this resolution? Because it tells the truth, by exposing first of all
the government (“making a mockery of popular representation”,
“preparing to resort to force”), and then the liberals (“timidly
and inadequately express the people’s demands”, “waver between
freedom and the old regime”); because this resolution calls upon the Trudoviks,
the peasant deputies, to act resolutely, absolutely independently
of the Cadets; and lastly, because this resolution plainly says that a decisive
struggle outside the Duma is inevitable. The bourgeoisie has distorted
the meaning of this resolution in order to make it appear that the socialists
were in sanely calling for a fight immediately, and in order to divert
attention from the charges that were actually being made against the
bourgeoisie. It has behaved in this way because it understands its own interests
correctly. Comrade Plekhanov is wrong in echoing the bourgeoisie, for he
misunderstands the proletariat’s real attitude towards the government and the
bourgeoisie.

Take Comrade Plekhanov’s third idea. “The bourgeoisie in the Duma is
demanding freedom for all and land for the peasants.” Is this true? No, it is
only half true, or only a quarter true. The bourgeoisie is not demanding, but
begging from the old authorities. The bourgeoisie has forbidden all talk about
“demands” in the Duma. The bourgeoisie (the Cadets) is demanding
such “freedom”, of the press for example, that people can
be clapped in gaol or sent to penal servitude for publishing socialist
speeches.[3][6]
The bourgeoisie is demanding, not land for the
peasants, but sale of part of the land to the peasants (for
the payment of compensation is a form of buying and selling). Is Comrade
Plekhanov right in keeping silent about this inadequacy
and timidity of the bourgeois proposals, about the wavering of the
Cadets? No, he is absolutely wrong. What is the significance of Comrade
Plekhanov’s mistake? It is extremely dangerous for the proletariat, and
jeopardises success in the struggle for freedom. All socialists agree that this
struggle will be decided outside the Duma, and that it may flare up, even if we
do not wish it, in the not very distant future. In this struggle the proletariat
can, and must, march with the peasantry, and not trust the wavering,
treacherous, turncoat liberal bourgeoisie. There is nothing more dangerous in a
fight than trust in turncoats. Keeping silent about the timidity, vacillations
and treachery of the liberal bourgeoisie on the eve of a new turn towards a new
struggle, we do harm to the proletariat and to the cause of freedom.

Now for Comrade Plekhanov’s last idea, or piece of ad vice. “The whole
people must unanimously support the Duma.” The fact that bourgeois parties
predominate in the Duma should not deter the workers.

It is true that the workers should not be “deterred” by this. In
fact, they are not. They are prepared to support the bourgeoisie in the fight
against the government. But the question is, which bourgeoisie,
how is it to be supported, and in which struggle? It is
customary for the Cadets’ to hush up these questions, which expose their
instability; but it is unseemly for the Social-Democrat Comrade Plekhanov to
keep silent about them.

Supporting the “Duma” as such means supporting a Cadet
Duma, for the Cadets predominate there. Marxists should not regard the Duma as
an organ of “popular” representation in general. They are in duty
bound to inquire which classes this Duma represents.

Can we support a Cadet Duma at all? No, because the proletariat must expose and
denounce every wavering and irresolute step the Duma takes. On the very page on
which Comrade Plekhanov’s article appears, the comrades of Kuryer
write: “...the Left section of the Duma [i.e., the Trudovik and Workers’
Groups] meekly suffer the humiliating and reactionary tutelage of
Mr. Muromtsev and Mr. Dolgorukov...” (the Chairmen of the Duma, Cadets
both). Now that is true. That is exactly what genuine socialists should
say. Can the “people”, or the proletariat, unanimously support a
“Duma” that is the instrument of the reactionary
tutelage of the liberals over the Trudoviks? No, they cannot and will not.

There are two main bourgeois parties in the Duma— the Cadets and the
Trudoviks. The former represent the compromising, treacherous bourgeoisie,
which is obviously preparing to make a deal with the autocracy and is obviously
incapable of waging a resolute struggle. The latter represent the toiling petty
bourgeoisie, who are incredibly downtrodden, who dream of an equalised division
of the land and who are capable of waging a resolute and self-sacrificing
struggle, into which they are being driven by the whole course of events and by
the whole conduct of the government. Which bourgeoisie should the
proletariat support “immediately”? The latter, warning
the “people” against the unreliability of the former. The
proletariat must and will support the Trudoviks against the Cadets, exposing the
“reactionary tutelage” of the Cadets over the Trudoviks, and calling
upon the Trudoviks to throw off this tutelage.

Now for the last question: how to support, and in which struggle? To support
anybody in the Duma means voting for him. It is common knowledge that the
Workers’ Group refused to vote for the Cadet (in general, the “Duma’s”)
reply to the address from the throne. The workers’ deputies
unanimously refused to “support” the Duma. Were the workers
“mistaken” in this, too? If Comrade Plekhanov thinks they were, let
him say so plainly; such things must be said without equivocation.

Real and serious support will be given outside the Duma. It is not we who
determine this, but the whole course of events, the very nature of the present
struggle; for this is not a struggle between the Duma and the Ministry, but a
struggle between the people and the old authorities. It is strange and wrong to
call such “support of the Duma” merely “support”. It
will be a resolute fight outside the Duma. The proletariat must start this fight
only jointly with the peasantry. The proletariat and the peasantry will win
this fight, despite the instability, vacillations and treachery of the liberal,
Cadet, “Duma” bourgeoisie, and its philandering with reaction.

We now see how bad is the advice Comrade Plekhanov gives the working class. Our
Unity Congress made a slight mistake in pushing the Party somewhat towards the
right, and in inadequately appraising the danger of overdoing support of the
Cadets. Comrade Plekhanov is making a big mistake by going much too far to the
right, and by calling upon the proletariat to support the Cadets and the Cadet
Duma fully, completely and without reservation.

Notes

[4]Kuryer (The Courier)—a legal Menshevik daily
published in St. Petersburg in May and June 1906.

[5]Dyelo Naroda (People’s Cause)—a legal
Socialist-Revolutionary daily newspaper published in St. Petersburg in May
1906.

[6]Lenin is referring to the Cadet “Draft Law on the
Press”, published in Reck, central organ of the Cadets, on May
17-18 (30-31), 1906. The draft envisaged penal servitude for a term of up to
eight years for violating the tsarist censorship regulations.